Five Bad Ideas: Lessons from a Tea Party

Congressman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, spoke at the tea party rally in Columbus, Ohio, over the weekend to a crowd of about 200. He specifically outlined the problems with this current Congress and their destructive economic policies. He focused on five things that he believes are going to be the nails in the coffin of American supremacy in the global marketplace.

“To do any one of these things at any time is a bad idea. To attempt to do one of them during a recession is even worse. But to attempt to do all five during a recession is crazy, and yet that’s what your federal government is getting ready to do,” Jordan said, before outlining the following issues:

Increase Taxes (“The Obama budget has the largest tax increase in history.”)

Spending (“They’re going to continue to spend at unprecedented rates. The budget the administration has submitted to Congress will double the national debt in 8 years. We’re going to run the ten largest deficits over the next ten years.”)

Further Unionize the Workforce (They’re going to attack the secret ballot with card check legislation.)

Government-run Health Care (They want to implement a plan “where the government decides which type of health care you’re going to get and when you’re going to get it.”)

Cap-and-Trade (“This is, in my view, the worst. Putting limits on the amount of energy we can have in our economy. Putting restrictions in a unilateral. Think about this: we’re competing in a world market. Our competitors in the international marketplace, China and India, they’re not going to have the restrictions placed on what kinds of energy they can use. That is going to be a tax increase on every single small business owner and every single family.”)

Jordan then went on to say:

We know what works. … We know that keeping taxes low works, we know that controlling spending, not mortgaging our kids and grandkids’ future works. We know that allowing workers the decision of whether they’re going to form a union or not is the right thing to do, not taking away one of their fundamental rights to a secret ballot. And we know that decisions made between you and your doctor and your family is the best way to do health care. And finally, we understand that using the natural resources we have in this country to meet our own energy needs is the right way to go, not limiting what we can put in the environment and what we can use in energy.

Jordan spoke about his colleague in Congress Mike Pence and conservatism in general, advising that–like the Indiana congressman–we need to send the message to our neighbors and our government with a smile on our face.

A follow-up rally in Columbus is tentatively planned for 6:00 p.m. on April 15, 2009.

Justin Higgins is a student at Ohio State University and the proprietor of the blog Shots on the House.